Holiday Shipping

Posted by Lee on 11/22/2022 to News
Holiday Shipping

Below is important information on holiday shipping and our recommendations for any items you need to receive by Christmas.  Please read these carefully before placing your order.

1) Free Shipping is by US Mail Media Mail.  Please be aware that Media Mail is the slowest option available from the Post Office- packages are handled on a space available basis.  Delivery is typically 7-14 days but can be 30 days or more during the holiday season.  

2) If you need your items for Christmas we recommend priority mail.  We also recommend placing your order as early as possible.  We can not emphasis enough the importance of placing your order as early as possible.

3) We make every effort to ship as soon as possible, however it is impossible to keep every title in stock at all times.  A number of publishers have switched to print on demand for their books.  In many cases they do not stock large numbers of the book and when we place our order we have to wait for them to be printed.  While we do try to anticipate demand and order books early, unexpected demand may mean we will run short on titles. We may, at our discretion, split your order to ship in stock items sooner.

4) Please note that when you receive tracking information for your package there is an estimated delivery date. This is only an estimate, neither media mail or priority mail are guaranteed services.  Often during the holiday season delivery times are much longer than normal.  Once we have mailed the package we have no control over when it will be delivered.

5) If you select priority mail shipping we may, at our discretion, use UPS ground rather than the Post Office.  We have found that UPS is more reliable during the holiday season.  If  you want to ensure that package is shipped via UPS you must call and place the order by phone -there will additional shipping charges. These charges start at $14.00.  Unfortunately our webpage is not currently able to correctly calculate UPS charges.  The shipping cost is based on both the weight of the package and how far it is traveling.  If you do not want us to use UPS in place of USPS Priority Mail please let us know in the order comments.  UPS can not ship to PO Boxes.

6) When you receive a notification that your package has shipped, that means it has been physically delivered to the Post Office.  When, or if,  they scan the box is out of our control. Due to the volume of packages we ship, they are not individually scanned at our local Post Office but are scanned at the Jersey City Distribution Center.   If your package tracking indicates a status of Shipment Received, Pending Acceptance that means your package is most likely in the Jersey City Distribution Center waiting to be scanned/processed.  Please be advised the Post Office is very inconsistent about scanning packages.  It is not uncommon for packages to first be scanned when they arrive at your local distribution center.   We just recently had 3 packages sent to us from California.  The first time they were scanned was when they arrived at our local post office.

7) During this time of year, the Post Office is non-responsive to our inquiries about where package are in the system.  We are unable to provide any information about packages other than what the online tracking indicates.  The Post Office will not begin searching for any packages until 30 days after they are shipped.   

8) If you are ordering a pre-order item, the release date is only an estimate of when it will be released. Due to production delays at many major printers, as well as shipping delays a number of titles have been delayed.  We can not guarantee when any pre-order items will be available or that you will have them in time for Christmas.